Have you ever had a question and didn’t know where to find the answer? If so, you’ve come to the right place. This section is a compilation of answers to the questions we are most regularly asked. If you can’t find the question you wanted to ask, don’t hesitate to contact us at: info@voicesofhopelincoln.org or 402-476-2110.

Voices of Hope provides comprehensive services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and related forms of abuse such as stalking, harassment, and incest. For a complete listing of all of our services visit the Programs & Services page of our website.

Where are you located & what are your hours?

Voices of Hope is located at 2545 N St. in Lincoln, NE. We are accessible 24-hours a day through our crisis line: 402-475-7273.
Our facility is open for walk-in services from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm Monday – Friday. In addition, we are open until 7:00 pm on Wednesday.

Is there a fee for your services?

NO. Victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and related forms of abuse, along with their family members, receive free services.

Do you help male victims?

Yes, we do help male victims of sexual assault, incest or domestic violence on a one-to-one basis, through our walk-in or counseling. At this time, we have no support groups for males.

Am I a victim?

• Is it domestic violence if I am not being hit?
Yes it is. Domestic violence includes the continuum from verbal and emotional abuse to physical and sexual abuse.
• Is it rape if I voluntarily drink too much or take drugs?
Consent can only be given by someone who is acting freely and voluntarily. They must also have knowledge of the nature of the act involved. Being unconscious or drunk means you cannot give consent.
• If I asked my attacker to wear a condom, is that considered consent?
Overall, one must look at the situation as a whole. It may seem inevitable that the rape will occur–asking for protection from disease and pregnancy is not consenting.
• Is it rape if I did not fight him off or try to escape?
Whatever you did–you survived. Therefore, you did what you needed to do in order to stay alive. You only need to say “no” OR not say “yes” for consent to be withheld.
• Can a minor lawfully consent to having sex with another minor?
Unless they are married, a minor cannot legally give consent. Even so, prosecution in this area is rare unless there is a large age difference or if one of the participants is very young. Prosecution and penalties will vary from state to state.
• Can a minor consent to having sex with an adult?
No! A minor cannot legally give consent, no matter how willing s/he may be. This is something that can be prosecuted. In Nebraska, sex between someone 19 or over with someone under 16 can result in a charge of first degree sexual assault.

How many people do you serve each year?

On average, Voices of Hope provides the following number of services in a year
* Average of 7,500 client-related calls on our 24-hour crisis line and office phones
* Serves an average of 1,800 unduplicated-adult victims
* Serves 350 - 450 children
* Assist with 175 - 200 protection orders
* Provide 100+ medical advocacies
* Follow up on 750+ calls from law enforcement with information to victims
* Server over 400 survivors through support & educational groups

Our organization takes our privacy policy seriously and takes steps to protect and ensure the safety of our clients as well as our supporters.

Anyone using our services can be assured of their personal confidentiality. It is a priority of our agency and critical to client safety.

If you are a volunteer ror donor to our agency, we want you to know that we do not sell or otherwise disclose information about our volunteers or supporters outside of our immediate organization. This policy has no exceptions. We do not sell or exchange your information with any other organizations, public, private or nonprofit. .

We’re always on the lookout for individuals like you wanting to get involved.

We rely on volunteers to help answer our 24-hour crisis line, particularly on evenings and weekends. Crisis line calls are routed to your home phone or cell phone during your "shift" hours. Prior to serving as a crisis line volunteer, you must successfully complete our 34-hour training session. Three sessions are offered each year.

We also welcome individuals who are interested in other means of volunteering such as volunteering for a fundraising event, helping with yard work, painting, clean up at our facility, or undertaking special projects.

About Us

Our vision is that all victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, as well as their families and communities, receive responsive, empowering services and support that meet their needs, both individual and cultural, through advocacy and education aimed at eliminating recurrence, challenging oppressive social institutions, and reducing violence and oppression.

Privacy Policy

What Information Do We Collect?
When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.

Personal Information You Choose to Provide
We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys.
If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.

Website Use Information
Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.

How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us?
Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.

What Are Cookies?
Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.

How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies?
We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users.
Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.

Notice of New Services and Changes
Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.

How Do We Secure Information Transmissions?
When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website.
Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.

How Do We Protect Your Information?
Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction.
Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information.
Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.

How Can You Access and Correct Your Information?
You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.

Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties?
We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.

What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information?
We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

Permission to Use of Materials
The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.